St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1887-12-31

Childhood ~
RRooKLYN, December 25.-SerVlces To-
day at the Brooklyn Tabernacle were
iubilant. Professors BroWae ana AL
with organ and cornet, were unusually
rowerful and Mrs. Florence Rice-kn
sang three solos. The thousands or peo-
nle who hacked the church and all the
approaches seemed to join in the great
chorus:
He shall reign from pole to pole
With illimitable sway;
He shall reign, when. like SCROLL
Wonder heavens have passed away.
Rev T, Dewitt Talmage, d. d., took
as the subject of his sermon, The Barn
and its Surroundings" His text was
taken from Luke ii, Is: 1.-The shepherds
said one to another, Let lis now go even
INTO Bethlehem, and see this thing which
is come to pass" DR.. Talmage said:
One thousand wears of the world exist
ence rolled painfully and YEARLY along,
and no Christ. Two thousand years,
and no Christ. Three thousand years,
and no Christ. Four thousand years,
and no Christ. Give us Christ had
cried Assvrian and Persian and Chaldean
and Egyptian civilization, but the
Inns of the earth and the lips
of the sky made no answer. The
world had already been atfiuent OF
genius. Among poets had appeared
Homer and Thespis and Aristophanes
andsSophocles and Euripides and Alexis
Eschylus, yet no Christ to be the most
poetic figure of the centuries. Among
historians had appeared Herodotus and
Xenophon and Thucydides, but no Christ
from whom all history was to date back
ward and forward-B. C. and A. ID.
Among conquerors Camillus and Man
Illus and Regulus and Xantippus and
Hannibal and Scipio and Pompey and
Caesar, yet no Christ who was to be con-
oueror of earth and Heaven.
But the slow century and the slow year
and the slow month and the slow hour
at last arrived The world had had
mathis or concerts in the morning and
yespers or concerts in the evening, but
now it is to have a concert at midnight.
The black window shutters OF Decem-
Der night were thrown open, and some
of the best singers of a world where they
all sing stood there. and putting back the
drapery of cloud chanted a peace
anthem, until all the echoes OF hill and
valley applauded and encored the Halle
luiah chorus.
At last the world has Christ and just
the Christ it needs Come, let us 60 into
that Christmas scene as though we had
never before worshiped at the manager.
Here is Madonna worth looking at. L
wonder not that the most frequent
name in all lands and in all Christian
centuries is Mary. And there are Marys
in palaces and Marys in cabins, and
though German and French and Italian
and Spanish and English pronounce it
differently, they are all namesakes OF the
one whom we find on bed of straw with
her pale face against the soft cheek OF
Christ in the night of the Nativity. All
the great painters have tried on canvas
to present Mary and her child and the
incidents of that most famous night of
the worlds history. Raphael, in three
different masterpieces, celebrated them.
Tintoret and Guirlandjo surpassed them
selves in the Alteration of the Magi.
Corregio needed to do nothing more
than his Madonna to become immortal.
The Madonna of the Lily, by Leonardo
da Vinci, will kindle the admira-
ton of all ages. Murillo never
won greater triumph by his pencil than
in his presentation of the Holy Family.
But all the galleries of Dresden are for
gotten when think Of the small room of
that gallery containing the Sistine Ma
donna. Yet all of them were copies OF
St. Matthews Madonna, and Luke's Ma
donna, the inspired Madonna of the Old
Book, which we had put into our hands
when we were infants, and that we hope
to have under our heads when we die.
Behold, in the first place, that on the
first night of Christ's life God honored
the brute creation. You cannot get into
that Bethlehem barn without going past
the camels, the mules, the dogs, the oxen
The brutes of that stable heard the first
cry of the infant Lord Some of the old
painters represent the oxen and camels
kneeling that night before the newborn
babe. And we'll might they kneel
Have you ever thought that Christ
came among other things to alleviate
the sufferings of the brute creation
Was it not appropriate that He
should during the first lew days and
nights of His life on earth be surrounded
by the dumb beasts whose moan anC
plant and believing have for ages been {
prayer to God for the arresting of theil
tortures and the righting of theil
wrongs? 1t did not merely happen So
that the unintelligent creatures of Goo
should have been that night In Close
neighborhood. Not kennel in all tn,
centuries, not birds nest, not worn
out horse on tow-path, not herd freez
ing in the poorly-built cowpen, not
freight car in summer time bringing thu
beeves to market without water through
thousand miles of agony, not sur
geon's room witnessing the struggles 0
fox or rabbit or pigeon or dog in the hor
rors of viyisection but has an interest il
the fact that Christ was born in stabl
surrounded by brutes. He remember
that night, and the prayer He heard il
their pitiful moan He will answer in tn
punishment of those who maltreat tn
dumb brutes. They surely have as mucl
right in the world as we have
In the first chapter of Genesis 70,
may see that they were placed on tn
earth before man was, the fish and fow